Dignity in urban geography: Starting a conversation

Abstract

Studies in critical urban geography actively deal with injustices and humiliation, employing concepts like equity, justice, sustainability and the like, but strikingly, dignity is not among such current normative concepts. Analytic perspectives and definitions of dignity are widely discussed by philosophy, legal studies, and race and Indigenous studies, but a dialogue of this literature with urban geographical work is still pending. This article initiates a conceptual conversation between these traditions. It reviews how dignity occurs in urban geographical work, then presents contemporary literature on the concept of dignity, and suggests a heuristic approach that can then serve geographical analyses. We outline the potential of scholarly engagement with the concept of dignity and its merits in considering two classic topics of urban geographical scholarship from a dignity-perspective: the employment of dignifying rhetoric for promotion of mega-events, and large housing estates as a stigmatized type of neighbourhood. We highlight affectual and relational perspectives of dignity, including the interpersonal and societal emergence of dignifying or humiliating practices, and the contingency of the concept of dignity across time and context. For critical urban studies and human geography, we thus establish dignity as the moral status of a person, of a collective, and of a place within a given context rather than a universal moral status.